Paper-cut architecture in Poland

Polish pavilion designed for the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai

Thank goodness DM (www.builtsound.org) alerted me to the post on BLDG blog (bldgblog.blogspot.com) about the Polish Pavilion for Expo 2010 (www.polishpavilion.pl). Designed by Wojciech Kakowski, Natalia Paszkowska, and Marcin Mostafa the Polish pavilion is based on traditional folk art cut-outs of Poland. As BLDG blog makes clear, 'this "paper cut-out" theme has been taken quite literally: the outer envelope of the building is actually a kind of incised wrapper, capable of unfolding to form a flat surface again (albeit one in which the patterns do not always match up)'.

Polish paper cut-outs (Wycinaki) have a distinctive graphic style that combines a variety of colours in each design. Traditionally Polish cut-outs were made with sheep shearing scissors and would often adorn ceiling beams in country cottages. The current exhbition at the Łowicz Museum, Poland (muzeum.low.pl/english.htm) presents the three groups of paper decorations popular in the region during the 19th century; circular (gwiozdy) featuring peacocks and other birds, vertical stripes of flowers (tasiemki), long horizontal cut-out landscape scenes (kodry), as well as paper or wool "spiders" - which were suspended from rustic ceilings like chandeliers.